


Melancholy Blue

by BBirdy



Series: Torrential Blue [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Advice, Alpha Sokka (Avatar), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, Hurt, Iroh (Avatar) is a Good Uncle, M/M, Masks, Mutual Pining, Omega Zuko (Avatar), Parental Advice, Protective Iroh (Avatar), Set During Earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28730886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BBirdy/pseuds/BBirdy
Summary: "You're a firebender?" The words struck like a bell, the sounds of dawn vanishing in an instant.Birds stopped chirping, the cold turned from a morning chill to a northern gust.Blue didn't move, didn't look at him, though it was hard to tell underneath the mask."I…" Sokka tried to find the words, source the feeling in his chest.That fire had done more to ignite something in his chest.
Relationships: Bato/Hakoda (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Torrential Blue [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2028164
Comments: 35
Kudos: 279





	Melancholy Blue

Zuko laid his head on Sokka's shoulder, eyes closed, fleeing the soft breeze, bringing with it the smell of lotus blossoms. 

"You seem relaxed," Sokka chuckled, winding their fingers closer together. 

Not wanting to speak, to ruin a moment in which he could finally feel peace, Zuko shrugged a shoulder. 

The moonlight still lit silver, starting to peek gold on the horizon. They'd sat there for hours. 

Fingers closed around Zuko's own cold skin. The fire he'd offered hours previous had been waved away. 

Even with burnt edges, the paper beside them had been filled to the brim, their own way of talking. 

The first question Zuko had answered. 

"What's your name?"

_ Blue _

"What's your real name?"

_ Blue _

Sokka had laughed then, a real laugh that warmed their quiet ledge. 

Then Sokka had asked why Zuko never spoke. 

Fear faded and Zuko shared, admitting to his father's own bending. 

"He burned you? How could he? His own son!" Sokka was up on one knee, charged up, face in that self-righteous grimace, that protective nature, leaving Zuko under its comforting weight. 

Zuko took his clenched fist.

_ It's okay. _

Those words didn't need to be written. They were merely understood. 

The paper filled until ink ran into soot. There were still questions, still, things to know. But there was time now. Time stretched out. 

Zuko knew he would come back, be able to find the food that his uncle's little money could not afford. his alpha would take care of him. 

The idea soothed the remaining fear. What was there to fear with Sokka at his side?

Lying down on their little balcony Soka curled a leg around Zuko's. 

Icy dawn moved slowly. 

Glancing up at long last Zuko didn't hesitate. His alpha wouldn't hurt him. Holding out his palms Zuko offered the tiny heartbeat of fire, giving them warmth their intertwined bodies couldn't provide. It laid between them, no larger than a cherry. 

"You're a firebender?" The words struck like a bell, the sounds of dawn vanishing in an instant. 

Birds stopped chirping, the cold turned from a morning chill to a northern gust. 

Sokka's loving blue eyes became ones of steel. He pushed back, firm hands hard on Zuko's shoulder. 

"I'm sorry," the snarl held no remorse. "I can't be with you."

No strength to pull himself up, Zuko struggled to lift himself. Why couldn't he move? He had to move. 

Sokka's face, twisted in hatred was the only real thing on earth. 

"Zuko." 

"Please," Zuko begged. "Please. I can explain."

"Zuko." 

And the voice was not Sokka's. It was older. 

Wrinkled hands pressed a cool cloth against his cheek. 

"Uncle?" Zuko rasped. His voice sounded so far away. 

"I am glad to have you back in the land of the living," Iroh soothed. "You have been lost to fever."

"It feels like a heat," Zuko tried to sit up, only to have a glass of water pressed against his lips. He drank greedily, only to have nothing left, lips still cracking. Zuko couldn't stop the tears dripping down his cheeks. They laid too thickly on his cheeks because it had just begun. The dream must have started them.

Sokka's soft words echoed in his mind. Desperately he tried to cling to those smiles. 

He hated it. He hated his weakness. He couldn't stop his tears.

"You are in pain," Iroh said. "Speak to me. Tell me. Where does your pain lie?" 

"I gave him up," Zuko's voice broke, dropping back to the mat, body aching. 

Iroh said nothing, waiting with concern etched into every line of his face. 

"I gave him up. I dropped the mask in that lake and I can't see him ever again."

"You speak of the boy you spent your night within the earth kingdom colonies?" Iroh asked slowly, confused. "Is he not still there?"

Zuko shook his head. Throat broken, pain ripping him apart from the inside out, he spoke. He didn't bother trying to hide anymore. 

With every passing sentence, Iroh's face fell further. 

"And I ran away. He was still asleep and I ran away," Zuko dropped an arm over his face, shoulders shaking. "If I'd taken the Bison I could have brought it to the avatar myself. I could have shown them, shown him I was good. It was my chance…"

"Oh my nephew," Iroh took a damp cloth, placing it on his burning forehead. "You have fallen for one fate that you cannot have. And, in your decision to release your anger toward the avatar you have given away your chance to have this love actualized. You have been holding onto more than I realized." 

Zuko could feel himself fading back into the grips of his fevered dreams. He would see Sokka's face once more, both his joy and anger. He wanted nothing more than to live in those dreams. 

But when reality set in his pain would return. 

What a double-edged blade, his love was. 

Love?

No. No, that wasn't possible. Infatuation maybe? Obsession more likely. But he didn't love the watertribe boy. He couldn't. 

"You cannot heal with such a wound on your heart Zuko," Iroh spoke slowly, picking every word carefully. "And so you must decide. Was you letting the mask go speaking toward you letting this boy go too? Or was it opening the possibility of letting him see beneath the mask?"

Zuko was too far into his illness to answer. 

* * *

"And he just ran away!" Sokka finished, arms thrown over his head.

Away from the other warriors, Sokka had been unable to stop the flow of words. Seeing his father again had broken a dam in his chest. He couldn't stop. Sharing everything from meeting Aang up to his life in Ba Sing Sae. But the thing that had pulled him to his feet, had him pacing, clutching at his chest, almost pulling out his hair, was his masked omega. 

To his credit, Hakoda did not interrupt, watching his son's tirade. 

Dropping back to the sand Sokka dropped his chin in his hands, dejected. 

"You seem pretty hung up on this Blue character," he said awkwardly. 

Cheeks flushing red Sokka swallowed. "And you, you're not mad about him being, being a _him_?"

Hakoda cleared his throat. "I don't think I have the right to."

Brows furrowed Sokka followed his father's gaze down the beach. "Wait, wait, wait, really? Katara said something about- You and Bato. Really?"

Unable to keep from laughing Hakoda dropped his head back onto his shoulders. "I can't imagine what Gran-Gran is going to say but yes. He was there for me after your mother-"

Both stared intently at the sand for a long moment. 

"I am glad you found someone," Sokka said eventually. 

"You too."

"But I don't think I did," Sokka clasped his hands in his lap. "He can't talk, hardly looks at me and we've only met twice."

"You've told me how you feel about him though," Hakoda slapped his hand on Sokka's shoulders. "Heats and ruts may be a heightened state but that doesn't change love."

Love?

Sokka pulled away, jumping to his feet and already trying to justify. "I am not in love," he argued. "Maybe curious, a little concerned about him sure but-"

"You can hear your heart in your ears when you think about him?" Hakoda smirked. "The idea of him not having enough food twists you up so hard inside you can hardly eat? And when you woke up without him at your side you felt like someone had ripped away one of your limbs while you slept?"

Sokka opened and shut his mouth like a fish before giving up and nodding. 

"My son, you are in love. And if this boy, this Blue is someone you're willing to go after then you can't let yourself give up. We aren't the kind to give up, you, your sister, or I. We hold onto people, we follow our hearts. Your mother was the same."

Still looking as if he would crack under the pressure of his worries Sokka whispered his final plea, his final desperate trump card. 

"He's a firebender."

"What?" Hakoda froze. 

"That's why he jumped off the balcony, why he ran away. He showed me he was a firebender. He'd run...

* * *

He'd run away. 

Clutching the edge of the balcony, crumpled half-burned paper in his fist Sokka watched. 

"Blue!" his strangled cry followed after. 

He swore he could still smell the warm fire, the crackling creature Blue had held in his palm. It had pulsed in time with Sokka's own frantic heartbeat. 

Cursing his own lack of ability Sokka wished he could have Aang's bending if only for the moment, to launch himself after the retreating figure. 

He'd pulled away.    
Leaning forward, face inches from the mask, Sokka had gaped, open-mouthed at the tiny flame. Reaching out shaking fingers he'd whispered his question.

"You're a firebender?"

Blue hadn't moved, hadn't looked at him, though it was hard to tell underneath the mask. 

"I…" Sokka tried to find the words, source the feeling in his chest. 

That fire had done more to ignite something in his chest. 

Blue had taken his arm in the watertribe handshake. He had to know who Sokka was, at least in passing, right?

"Blue-"

Inching only ever closer, Sokka had a hand on his shoulder. 

He had flinched, pulled back so quickly. Sokka's finger caught, pulling the tie of the mask that was the face of his omega. 

The fire had gone as Blue slapped away his hand, scrambling back, spine arched as he pressed himself against the wall of the building. 

Trembling hard enough for Sokka to see, Blue had pulled the tie tighter. 

"I'm sorry-" Sokka tried. 

Blue hadn't heard. He couldn't have heard. 

Like a shadow he'd flitted from the edge of the balcony and onto the next roof, leaping to the next after that, lighter than the silver light atop him. 

Wanting, needing to shout after him, Sokka tried to follow, survival instinct stopping him inches from launching himself into the pavement.

And just like the light of the fire going out, the pale fingers pulling away, Sokka could feel the warmth underneath his chest dying.   
  


* * *

  
"It was a mistake," Sokka explained. "I didn't mean try and take off the mask. I just didn't know how to react. I didn't know how to react to him telling- er showing me he was a firebender. I didn't know how to tell him I didn't mean to take off the mask. But if he felt the same he'd want to show me his face… wouldn't he?" Sokka's voice cracked. 

"I don't have your answers," Hakoda placed a hand on his shoulder. "I wish I did. But I do know that this war has ripped apart too many people, separated nations, brother from brother and lover from lover for too long. We beat the fire nation, your friend finds a way to bring peace again, and those walls of firebender won't matter. Right now that boy is hiding because of who he is, no matter who that may be. But we're fighting so that those barriers don't have to matter."

Sokka nodded miserably. "It's been a hundred years, dad… how much longer do I have to wait?"

"I don't have that answer," Hokoda said. 

Staring at the sand Sokka fought back his tears. 

Love. 

He was in love. 

So why did it hurt so badly?

"Would it be easier? If I could just forget him?"

Hakoda's laugh drug a blade over Sokka's already aching soul. 

"Easier?" He hugged Sokka's shoulder tightly. "Definitely. But there isn't a way to stop caring about someone you love, not one I know about. If you think you can find that way then I don't know if it would be worth it."

"What do you mean?"

Staring at the sky, Hakoda spoke carefully. "With the world the way it is for as long as it's been that way the divide between nations can be hard to breach. If you can find a way to be happy, to find love and fulfillment without this boy it  _ would _ be easier to take it. But  _ could  _ you? Could you find a way to be happy without him?"

"So you're saying it's best I try and forget?" Despair was opening a hole in his chest. 

"No," Hakoda spoke firmly. "I'm not saying anything is for the best. You've lived too much of your life for me to tell you how to live." With steely eyes he looked his son in the face. "I'm telling you that it would be simpler, easier for the universe to keep turning the way it is. But you're not the one to take the easy way. Love who you want to love, but remember the troubles that you'll face in following the beat of your heart. And remember you have the power to make your own choices. To pursue this boy, or to let him be a part of you and let him go."

* * *

Zuko stood on the deck of his ship. No, not his, his sisters. 

Though as the older sibling he should outrank her. 

Head dropped in his hands he took a deep breath, elbows pressed against the railing. 

He could still feel Mai's kiss on his lips. 

Having spoken to her of his worries about returning, the banished prince, to his own country, he wished he could have said more.

But the kiss had stopped him short. 

It was nice. 

The kiss. 

Still, it left a hole in him. 

"I did not betray uncle," Zuko reprimanded himself, trying to convince himself? 

No. 

"I chose my country," he stood straighter. "I chose to separate myself from the enemy."

The enemy?

His alpha was the enemy?

"You knew that from the beginning," he argued quietly. "Not real. It was never real."

And yet, in choosing his nation he had placed the final nail in his coffin. 

He would never have his alpha again. 

Never. 

The final ripping, picking away the last threads that held him to his alpha should have felt liberating. But the only thing he could feel was the stitches pulling away a part of his heart. 

And it hurt. 

* * *

Sokka landed a heavy punch, missing the bag, fingers landing against the cold steel of the ship's wall. 

Had he ever really meant to hit the bag in the first place? Or did he want the sharp pain of the cold? 

"Stupid!" he wanted to scream the words into the heavens until his throat tore and bled. 

But in the echoing chambers that made his temporary bedroom the most, he could manage was the strangled whisper. 

Aang lay below deck, teetering on the edge of death. And if he'd been faster, if he'd been more aware, if he hadn't been  _ stupid. _

"Distracted," Sokka said, trying to lessen the blow of his own words. 

He grabbed the bag, fingers aching. The punching bag hadn't been winging with more than the soft sway of rolling waves. But it was solid, something to cling to. 

There were other things he wished he could cling to.

"Stop it," Sokka ordered himself this time, pushing the bag away, watching it swing violently on its chains. "Stop."

If he hadn't ever brought up Blue to his father, if he'd paid a little more attention. 

Could he have changed the outcome?

"Don't know how to stop caring?" Sokka muttered, remembering his father's words. "I do now. If I hadn't been distracted I could have done more. It's his fault. His fault for distracting me. His nation's fault for all of this." 

This time Sokka's blow landed directly on the bag. 

"His fault."

The knowledge didn't stop his throbbing heart. 

And it didn't stop the hurt.

**Author's Note:**

> The biggest thank you to That_loser who helped so much with character analysis. Seriously. Thank you. 
> 
> So this is short, I know. It is more of an intermission to the next part of this story. 
> 
> Please leave comments. I love to reply to any and all whether the be keysmashes or just your favorite line. All requests are adored!


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